Numerical Simulation of Heat Transfer in Porous Metals for Cooling Applications

Abstract

Porous metals have low densities and novel physical, mechanical, thermal, electrical, and acoustic properties. Hence, they have attracted a large amount of interest over the last few decades. One of their applications is for thermal management in the electronics industry because of their fluid permeability and thermal conductivity. The heat transfer capability is achieved by the interaction between the internal channels within the porous metal and the coolant flowing through them. This paper studies the fluid flow and heat transfer in open-cell porous metals manufactured by space holder methods by numerical simulation using software ANSYS Fluent. A 3D geometric model of the porous structure was created based on the face-centered-cubic arrangement of spheres linked by cylinders. This model allows for different combinations of pore parameters including a wide range of porosity (50 to 80 pct), pore size (400 to 1000 lm), and metal particle size (10 to 75 lm). In this study, water was used as the coolant and copper was selected as the metal matrix. The flow rate was varied in the Darcian and Forchheimer's regimes. The permeability, form drag coefficient, and heat transfer coefficient were calculated under a range of conditions. The numerical results showed that permeability increased whereas the form drag coefficient decreased with porosity. Both permeability and form drag coefficient increased with pore size. Increasing flow rate and decreasing porosity led to better heat transfer performance.

Numerical Study on Fluid Flow Behavior and Heat Transfer Performance of Porous Media Manufactured by a Space Holder Method

“…The radius of the cylindrical hole, r c , reflects the connectivity of the neighboring pores and can be determined by the pore radius, R , and metal particle radius, r . The distance between pores can be calculated by Equation (1) [ 23 ]: …”

“…Table 2 lists details of the boundary condition. According to the previous study, the result is unchanged when the number of unit cells in the mean flow direction is equal to or larger than four [ 23 ]. Therefore, five cells were built in the mean flow direction.…”

“…A relationship consistent with the experimental results was established between the heat transfer coefficient and the structural parameters, and it was also found that the interstitial heat transfer coefficient increases with increasing flow rate and rotation speed. Gauna and Zhao [ 23 ] studied pressure drop and heat transfer in porous media but did not consider the effect of natural convection on heat transfer.…”

Numerical Simulation of Heat and Mass Transfer Behavior during Iron Ore Sintering: A Review

“…E.A. Gauna et al [77,78] carried out numerical simulations of heat transfer in the cooling process of porous metal materials. This study obtained the influence of gas flow and pore size on heat transfer and elaborated the specific heat transfer equation, which is of great significance for heat transfer in the sintering process.…”

An Efficient Numerical Method for Pressure Loss Investigation in an Oil/Air Separator with Metal Foam in an Aero-Engine

“…There are mainly three methods to simplify the metal foam. Those are the prism model [22,23], the face-centered cubic (FCC) model [24], and the body-centered cubic (BCC) model [25,26]. The prism model, shown in Figure 2a, is the simplest model and has good versatility.…”